Abstract
The effect of immigration on redistribution has been widely debated. This paper contributes to this debate by testing two explanations, which are that (i) immigration tends to reduce redistribution due to people’s higher levels of xenophobia, and that (ii) immigration affects redistribution because immigrants do not have the right to vote. Since the demand for redistribution depends on the (expected) gap between median voter income and mean income, immigrants affect the demand for redistribution because, as non-citizens, they do not change the median voter’s income, but, as economic stakeholders, they do affect the mean income. Four empirical consequences of (i) and (ii) are tested at the individual level. Evidence from the European Values Survey in 45 countries confirms (ii), showing that immigrants’ expected competitiveness on the labor market affects preferences for redistribution and that it is amplified when the perceived number of immigrants is high. In contrast, (i) is globally rejected since the impact of the citizens’ declared level of solidarity with immigrants tends to be weak and depends on the type of measurement or specification used.
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Notes
The only exception being New Zealand, where all permanent residents may vote. Several countries grant such a right at local elections.
In recent history, there has been a clear trend towards bringing democracies closer to universal suffrage. Women or different ethnic minorities have obtained the right to vote in the last century and several studies have proved that these events have led to an increase in the level of redistribution (Lott and Kenny 1999; Aidt et al. 2006; Aidt and Dallal 2008). In fact, franchise extension to poorer populations on average tends to increase inequalities among voters and, hence, leads to a greater political demand for redistribution. Note, also, that when the franchise is limited, franchise extension can reduce income taxation (Plümper and Martin 2003; Aidt and Jensen 2009).
For example, beyond special requirements that can be more or less demanding, in France, Turkey and the United Kingdom, immigrants can qualify for enfranchisement after five years of residence; in Germany, after eight years; in Italy, Poland and Spain after ten years; 12 years are required in Switzerland.
Another variant is based on a concept of redistribution as a public good. Assuming that redistribution is a kind of public good and that individuals cooperate more with people who belong to their own ethnic group than with other people (Putnam 2007; Habyarimana et al. 2007), ethnic diversity will reduce the demand for the welfare state.
When immigrants have voting rights, immigration affects the demand for the welfare state as well. However, as I will show below, when immigrants are entitled to voting rights, the impact of immigration on redistribution is opposite to when immigrants cannot vote.
For interaction terms, I computed the items to obtain a variable using two values: 1 when respondents strongly agree or agree with the statement and null otherwise.
Respondents who have chosen the statement “I would consider personal freedom more important, that is, everyone can live in freedom and develop without hindrance” is coded 1, while people who believe that equality is more important, “that is, that nobody is underprivileged and that social class differences are not so strong” equals −1. Note that about 6 % of respondents did not agree with either of these statements. They are coded with 0.
PPP is derived from the IMF World Economic Outlook Database (October 2008 Edition).
In the Probit model, the dependent variable is dummy (I have considered the answers from 1–5 values as 0, and the values from 6 up to 10, as 1).
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank André Blais and the other members of the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies, Abel François, Anna Jeannesson, and Robert Kowalenko for their helpful comments. Finally, I would like to stress the excellent comments from two anonymous reviewers who considerably improved this article.
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Appendix
Appendix
Column I: Observations included in each country (peoples who have answered both questions about redistribution).
Column II and III: Available data on foreigners (persons who are not citizens of the country of residence) per country in the sample and according to Eurostat (Vasileva 2011). The correlation is r=.94.
Respondents | Foreigners (sample) (%) | Foreigners (Eurostat) (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Albania | 1455 | 1 | |
Azerbaijan | 1157 | 0 | |
Austria | 1455 | 2 | 11 |
Armenia | 1446 | 1 | |
Belgium | 1501 | 6 | 10 |
Bosnia Herzegovina | 1475 | 1 | |
Bulgaria | 1413 | 1 | |
Belarus | 1445 | 2 | |
Croatia | 1450 | 0 | |
Cyprus | 929 | 6 | 16 |
Czech Republic | 1733 | 1 | 4 |
Denmark | 1478 | 3 | 6 |
Estonia | 1483 | 16 | 16 |
Finland | 1058 | 0 | 3 |
France | 3039 | 4 | 6 |
Georgia | 1392 | 0 | |
Germany | 2041 | 4 | |
Greece | 1482 | 7 | 8 |
Hungary | 1486 | 0 | 2 |
Iceland | 797 | 2 | 7 |
Ireland | 965 | 4 | 9 |
Italy | 1431 | 0 | 7 |
Latvia | 1474 | 22 | 17 |
Lithuania | 1386 | 0 | 1 |
Luxembourg | 1549 | 47 | 43 |
Malta | 1389 | 2 | 4 |
Moldova | 1402 | 8 | |
Montenegro | 1427 | 5 | |
Netherlands | 1543 | 2 | 4 |
Norway | 1085 | 5 | 7 |
Poland | 1475 | 0 | 0 |
Portugal | 1462 | 4 | 4 |
Romania | 1380 | 0 | |
Russian Federation | 1431 | 0 | |
Serbia | 1458 | 0 | |
Slovak Republic | 1430 | 0 | 1 |
Slovenia | 1341 | 6 | 4 |
Spain | 1383 | 9 | 12 |
Sweden | 1111 | 4 | 6 |
Switzerland | 1230 | 19 | 22 |
Turkey | 2226 | 0 | |
Ukraine | 1470 | 1 | |
Macedonia | 1428 | 1 | |
Great Britain | 2004 | 8 | 7 |
Kosovo | 1521 | 20 |
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Magni-Berton, R. Immigration, redistribution, and universal suffrage. Public Choice 160, 391–409 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0094-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0094-6